Originally posted by OrionMan

Gents and Ladies of the forum

I know the consensus of this forum is that Xfire numbers is a very poor guideline for population numbers. That was conveyed to me very thoroughly yesterday when I posted a downward Xfire trend for WAR and I do agree that xfirenumbers are very hard to relate to anything (yet it is the only thing we have and it seems some hobby investors are looking to it as well). Anyway since Xfirenumbers this weeks tuesday was 5432 vs 5337 last tuesday (2% increase), I thought I'll post this as it is first time we have seen stabilization/increase since launch

http://www.xfire.com/games/aoc/Age_of_Conan_Hyborian_Adventures/

This is also in line what we have seen after launch of the PvP patch... We have seen activity increase..

I agree it does look like AoC's bleeding has begun to stop.  Based on the last couple weeks there is a definite flatening of the xfire stats.  Thats a good sign and good news! It must mean that funcoms latest efforts are starting to make headway and making the game good for players.  If they consolidate servers so there are more poeple around it might even start picking up.

Based on lvl 1-20 AoC could be a great game!!

Originally posted by GrayGhost79 

lol hope he's not bashing over in the War forums, that would hurt his stance that he isn't a FC employee.

If he wants to defend AoC and tell us not to bash things have changed he can't exactly do the same in another forum lol.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338787#2338787

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338469#2338469

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338323#2338323

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338063#2338063

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338044#2338044

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338024#2338024

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2336727#2336727

Here he is talking about how there's a "compatibility" issue with AoC and xfire.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2337037#2337037

Really, the guy is on a mission - make WAR look bad, make AoC look good.

Originally posted by Slythe

Originally posted by GrayGhost79 

lol hope he's not bashing over in the War forums, that would hurt his stance that he isn't a FC employee.

If he wants to defend AoC and tell us not to bash things have changed he can't exactly do the same in another forum lol.

 

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338787#2338787

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338469#2338469

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338323#2338323

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338063#2338063

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338044#2338044

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2338024#2338024

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2336727#2336727

 

Here he is talking about how there's a "compatibility" issue with AoC and xfire.

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2337037#2337037

Really, the guy is on a mission - make WAR look bad, make AoC look good.

Meh, nothing new to this site that's for sure. I could look through quite a few people's history ( in this thread alone) and find them doing the same thing for WAR. This is normal for newer games in general, when lotro launched, the same thing happened just as the  case was for every other game released within the last few years. They all get overhyped, then tore down in turn. Some cases differ in severity(ie. AOC much worse than LOTRO), give it two more months and a few more releases, AOC won't even be a topic of discussion any more.

As for X-fire I feel the same in this case as any other. It really doesn't tell you much.

I am not a Hater but I hardly know someone that uses Xfire not here in Sweden anyway. So thos numbers for me dont meen a thing even it goes up or down.

 Lord Orion/OrionMan

Useless attempt at viral marketing.

Well this is my theory of XFire, take it or leave it.

What XFire presents is a look at a specific playing base. Concidering XFire is software you willingly download, it is more likely that it's usage would only increase overall instead of decrease (In other words, it is more likely people are downloading and using the program than removing it from their system) and that it shows the habits of the same group of people.

To me, this means it is normally useless to compare across games, but it becomes excellent to compare games to themselves, concidering it represents (generally speaking) the same people week to week.

So reguardless if it is having issues with certain players, those who are getting it to work, are still being tracked day to day.

So using XFire to compare a game (AOC) to itself over time will give you fairly accurate data of wether a game is growing or shrinking. The more data you have, the more accurate your observations become.

So when I look at the chart and right now it is at the second lowest point it has ever been? It looks to me that the PvP is not having a long term effect on the population. It is still slowly decreasing.

Thank you all for your time and have a good day.

You don't need XFIRE to go onto most AOC servers and see that they are complete ghost towns.

That's pretty much the bottom line right there.

Onionman is wrong as usual. Numbers are down compared to last week. Sep 22 - 4926 hrs versus 5619 hrs at Sep 15.  A 14% decrease since last week that is! So that's the quality of threads and posts in an AOC forum. Talking crap about a crappy game. Yay!!!!

Originally posted by Baggs

What about the players that dont give a shit about xfire or other utterly useless programms?

Like , i dunno, me and at least 60 people i know of in AoC.

 

Come on, go  play some video game instead of trolling a forum....

Thanks for that witty and enlightening contribution to the discussion. 

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by OrionMan

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by OrionMan

Haha, ok if you say so... Regardless of how you feel about posts about AoC Xfire showed 2% increase for AoC gaming since last Tuesday. It puzzles me that this upset you...

 

yep..  AOC is up 2% since last tuesday..  but it is down  400% since June 30th when it had 415k.

So lets see

June 30th   415k
Sept 15th    105k
Sept 22nd   107k

You can't brag about the 2% bump without acknowleding the 400% drop since June since its coming from the same source.

Or lets just make it even more simple.. lets only go back 2 weeks.   In the past TWO weeks, AOC Xfire is down about 20%.  So even with this HUGE jump of 2% over the past week, they still haven't gotten back to where they were 2 weeks ago.  In fact, it will take 10 weeks of these gains just to get back to where they were on Sept 7th (which wasn't a very good place).

 

I agree. Xfire is useless and the data from those statistics are not very usefull for gauging of population numbers (in particular as AoC in fact also has some compatibility issues with Xfire). The 2% rise could however be good for one thing, which is to set an stopper for all these idiotic AoC xfire analysis posts. That's a blessing in itself.

 

Maybe and maybe not. The problem here is after all the discredting you did with the Xfire stats to turn around and use it yourself gives weight to it now. If it drops again then you have set yourself up for return fire. Naw... XFire numbers are meaningless when they're going down, remember? They only count  when they're going up.

Sept 24th:  Another 100 hours lost compared to a week ago...Sept 17th.

And if Xfire is only 1/100th of the population...well...heh.

Originally posted by OrionMan

Gents and Ladies of the forum

I know the consensus of this forum is that Xfire numbers is a very poor guideline for population numbers. That was conveyed to me very thoroughly yesterday when I posted a downward Xfire trend for WAR and I do agree that xfirenumbers are very hard to relate to anything (yet it is the only thing we have and it seems some hobby investors are looking to it as well). Anyway since Xfirenumbers this weeks tuesday was 5432 vs 5337 last tuesday (2% increase), I thought I'll post this as it is first time we have seen stabilization/increase since launch

http://www.xfire.com/games/aoc/Age_of_Conan_Hyborian_Adventures/

This is also in line what we have seen after launch of the PvP patch... We have seen activity increase..

First page on AoC official forums - I found this : http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=94652

Originally posted by OrionMan

 

Having said that, I can tell you that I know population increases right now on my main server. Last night when I search I found as many as 4-5 weeks after launch. Another thing I took note of since we have so hefty discussions over in this forum these days, was that there are more characters below lvl 40 than above and then obviously a huge amount of Lvl 80's. I take this as a sign of that there are many people joining in now (or at least rerolling on this server)

 

.

Alright. Name me the game at http://www.xfire.com/games/aoc/Age_of_Conan_Hyborian_Adventures/ that compete with your game. See the silly 200 user difference between awful games (and not so awful, yet singleplayer) and your AAA title.

It may as well drop to 100th place and Funcom will not sink. Only way to make Funcom sink, which would be rather stupid, considering how uber is Tornquist and good times in AoC, is to spread the word of bad mouth.

And I want Age of Conan to peacefully rest in it's niche, while Funcom (even better Funcom, without the Gaute nuisance) releases good-to-great or great games.

I, OrionMan, love Funcom for the sustainability and even moreso their ability to bring up either fresh ideas or good story. Age of Conan is neither, it's a futile swan song of Godager, who, of course, should be shot. Ellingsen, could've done much for TSW, yet, Ellingsen should be an IT engie and indie developer as he used to be. He, in my opinion, isn't worthy either of The Secret World or Dreamfall: Chapters.

Yet, whatever happens to him, I don't care, I just want a pool of steaming acid for Gaute. He is that bad, yes.

Originally posted by Yatzik

Originally posted by OrionMan

 

Having said that, I can tell you that I know population increases right now on my main server. Last night when I search I found as many as 4-5 weeks after launch. Another thing I took note of since we have so hefty discussions over in this forum these days, was that there are more characters below lvl 40 than above and then obviously a huge amount of Lvl 80's. I take this as a sign of that there are many people joining in now (or at least rerolling on this server)

 

.

 

 

Alright. Name me the game at http://www.xfire.com/games/aoc/Age_of_Conan_Hyborian_Adventures/ that compete with your game. See the silly 200 user difference between awful games (and not so awful, yet singleplayer) and your AAA title.

It may as well drop to 100th place and Funcom will not sink. Only way to make Funcom sink, which would be rather stupid, considering how uber is Tornquist and good times in AoC, is to spread the word of bad mouth.

And I want Age of Conan to peacefully rest in it's niche, while Funcom (even better Funcom, without the Gaute nuisance) releases good-to-great or great games.

I, OrionMan, love Funcom for the sustainability and even moreso their ability to bring up either fresh ideas or good story. Age of Conan is neither, it's a futile swan song of Godager, who, of course, should be shot. Ellingsen, could've done much for TSW, yet, Ellingsen should be an IT engie and indie developer as he used to be. He, in my opinion, isn't worthy either of The Secret World or Dreamfall: Chapters.

Yet, whatever happens to him, I don't care, I just want a pool of steaming acid for Gaute. He is that bad, yes.

#41.  Impresssive...only a 20% drop in hours played since last week and the lowest Friday totals ever.

Without a fugitive system the PvPpopulations are getting hammered.

Originally posted by trevornor

Well this is my theory of XFire, take it or leave it.

What XFire presents is a look at a specific playing base. Concidering XFire is software you willingly download, it is more likely that it's usage would only increase overall instead of decrease (In other words, it is more likely people are downloading and using the program than removing it from their system) and that it shows the habits of the same group of people.

To me, this means it is normally useless to compare across games, but it becomes excellent to compare games to themselves, concidering it represents (generally speaking) the same people week to week.

So reguardless if it is having issues with certain players, those who are getting it to work, are still being tracked day to day.

So using XFire to compare a game (AOC) to itself over time will give you fairly accurate data of wether a game is growing or shrinking. The more data you have, the more accurate your observations become.

So when I look at the chart and right now it is at the second lowest point it has ever been? It looks to me that the PvP is not having a long term effect on the population. It is still slowly decreasing.

Thank you all for your time and have a good day.

Very nice post!

I challenge any "hater" or "fanboy" of any game to argue against your general conclusion: "So using XFire to compare a game (AOC) to itself over time will give you fairly accurate data of wether a game is growing or shrinking."

Yes - It really is that simple! However this form of pure logic will of course be a total waste on anyone with a defined agenda... (including the OP?)